Brian Johnson

Episode 32: The Bhagavad Gita on Living Your Dharma

“It
is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the
dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own
dharma. But competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and
insecurity.” ~
Krishna from The
Bhagavad Gita

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Transcript

The Bhagavad Gita on Living Your Dharma

“It
is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the
dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own
dharma. But competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and
insecurity.” ~
Krishna from The
Bhagavad Gita

Dharma. It comes from the Sanskrit dhri, which means
“to support, hold up or bear.”

The word means many things, but according to Eknath Easwaran,
dharma “implies support from within: the essence of a thing, its
virtue, that which makes it what it is.”

On a larger scale, dharma means “the essential order of
things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and the affairs of
life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means
rightness, justice, goodness, purpose rather than chance.”

There’s also a (highly) personal application of dharma. In
essence, we all have our own “dharma” or purpose and reason for
being alive. As Krishna states in the Gita, following someone
else’s dharma is dangerous. If you live your life trying to impress
others and not fulfilling what you’re here to do, you’ll feel the
pain.

So... how about you? Are you living your dharma? Or struggling to
fulfill someone else’s ideas about who you should be and what you
should do?!

In his great book, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” (see
Notes),
Deepak Chopra dedicates a chapter to his 7th Law: The Law of Dharma.
In that chapter, he has a bunch of great questions to help us
discover and live our dharma. One of my favorites: “If you had
all the money and all the time in the world, what would you do?!!?”

So… if you had all the money and all the time in the world, what
would you do?